Buzz (left) and Zach Bissinger at home. Photo by Chris Crisman C’03 54 JULY | AUGUST 2012 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE On the road with Zach and Buzz, Peggy Lee on the car stereo, and the meaning of life. not easy to get the better of Buzz Bissinger C’76, It’s the famously combative writer for Vanity Fair and The Daily Beast and author of Friday Night Lights, A Prayer for the City [“Officer Down,” Feb 1998], and other books. Just ask anyone who’s gone up against him on a debate panel or been on the receiving end of his Twitter feed. But on the evi- dence of his new memoir, Father’s Day, one person who can is his son, Zachary. In his professional life Bissinger exudes a swaggering confidence, but his relationship with Zach involves much self-questioning and doubt. He also can’t find his way out of a parking lot without his son’s help. Zach is a savant. He can recall just about any person or fact that he’s ever been exposed to, is a master map-reader with an unerring memory for directions, and effortlessly calculates things like the day of the week for any given date. In addition, he is widely beloved for his forthright truthfulness and affable disposition (in marked contrast to his tightly strung father, aka “The Incredible Sulk”). But these gifts have come at a terrible cost. Born 13-and-a-half weeks prematurely weighing only one pound, 11 ounces, and deprived of oxygen for three minutes at birth, Zach suffered trace brain damage. As a result, “his comprehen- sion skills at the age of 24 are roughly those of an eight- or nine-year old” and his IQ, “which has been measured far too many times, is about 70, with verbal scores in the nor- mal range of 90, but with performance skills of about 50,” Bissinger writes. “I love my son deeply, but I do not feel I know him nor do I think I ever will.” Still, he was determined to try. IS THAT AN EXCERPT FROM FATHER’S DAY | BY BUZZ BISSINGER ALL THERETHE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE JULY IS? | AUGUST 2012 55 Father’s Day—which is subtitled A Journey into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son—describes, with dark humor and DEAR ART WHEN CAN WE GO FLYING IN YOUR PLANE self-lacerating honesty, Bissinger’s efforts to examine his own AGAIN HAVE YOU EVER BEEN UP TO NANTUCKET feelings of shame and guilt about Zach and to arrive at an under- MEMORIAL AIRPORT OR TO THE NEW BEDFORD MASS standing and acceptance of his son for who he is. The means to AIRPORT OR TO THE HYANNIS AIRPORT that end is a 10-day road trip the two of them took in 2007, begin- ning in Philadelphia and “stopping at all the places we’ve lived or DEAR STEVE WHAT COLOR SHIRT PANTS SHOES TIE know well—Chicago; Milwaukee; Odessa, Texas; Los Angeles,” an ARE YOU WEARING TODAY AND IM GOOD BY THE WAY itinerary chosen in deference to Zach’s love of familiarity, but com- AND WHEN ARE YOU TRAVELING NEXT FOR WORK AND prising, “by any ordinary standard, the worst cross country route WHO HAVE YOU TALKED TO FROM THE INQUIRER THESE ever contemplated.” DAYS AND DO YOU EVER TALK TO VERNON LOEB OR Along the way, Bissinger writes about Zach’s twin brother BILL MARIMOW OR MIKE LEARY OR PAUL MOORE OR TO Gerry GEd’08, born a crucial three minutes earlier, who grew up JONATHAN NEUMANN to become a teacher, and his failed marriage to the boys’ mother, Debra; recalls his own childhood and the deaths of his parents; DEAR KEVIN HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND BEST and revisits some of his professional triumphs, frustrations, and WISHES LOVE ZACH WHAT DID YOU GET FOR YOUR frustrations over triumphs (Of the two million-selling Friday Night BIRTHDAY AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR YOUR Lights, published in 1990 and later the basis for a film and TV BIRTHDAY DINNER TONIGHT series: “It was a wonderful thing to be known for something that had lasted so long. It was a terrible thing to be known for some- I try to take a peek at his current roster. He immediately thing that had happened so long ago”). shuts down the computer. But the heart of the book is Bissinger’s quest to have a “conver- —How come you never let me look at your emails? sation with my son. A conversation making him aware of his own —I don’t know because I don’t. reality,” he writes. “I had never told him what had happened when —You like to keep them private? he was born. I never mentioned the term brain damage. I never —Yeah. mentioned the reason he went to special schools. Did he know that —They should be private. You’re an adult now. he would never marry or have a family of his own? Did he know —Yeah. what sex was? Did he know who I really was …” —Are you happy? In the following excerpt, Bissinger comes to learn, with both —Yeah. pride and sadness, something of what Zach understands about his —Are you sad? fate—and about the young man’s courage in facing it. —I’m good. —Did you have any dreams last night? —No. —Do you ever dream? wake up. We dress. We eat the free continental break- —No. We fast. Zach finds a computer in the lobby and checks —Are you having a good time? his email. His roster of contacts is impressive and ever- —Pretty good. expanding. It is one of the reasons he compulsively collects business cards, to find email addresses. If that doesn’t work, We find the minivan in the parking lot and climb inside. I still he takes to the Internet with relentlessness. He has taught feel slightly blurry from driving the night before but I am himself to search exhaustively, part of his intrinsic process, determined to be upbeat. as Oliver Sacks has said, to make himself whole and con- —Ready for takeoff, captain. nected to the universe of people he likes. Because of his pro- —Yeah where are we going? digious memory he often knows more about their lives than —Chicago, Chicago, a helluva town, a helluva town. they do themselves. Waiting for the train one day, Zach saw I repeat the chorus. I repeat it again, hoping in vain that a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer he had befriended. Zach will sing along with me, just as I am hoping in vain that He asked him why he was there: it was his day off. Zach was I will rejuvenate. I can’t get out of the parking lot. I take lefts right. The reporter went home. when I should be taking rights. Arrows only take me in circles. Some email exchanges continue for months or longer, until We have not driven one-one hundredth of a mile yet today. Zach cuts them off abruptly and without warning. A few —WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? HOW THE FUCK DO YOU GET gently ask if I can find out what happened, maybe get them OUT OF HERE? reinstated. I feel like the father of the maître d’ at a hot new —There’s an entrance over here yeah yeah here’s the restaurant, whom friends ask for reservations because of my entrance. perceived pull. I have none. Zach guides me like a good Samaritan helping a blind man He doesn’t even let me read what he writes. I’ve only seen cross the street. a small sampling that a few of his correspondents occasion- —Sorry Zach. I shouldn’t have gotten mad like that. ally share with me. He writes in caps and always asks ques- —Yeah. tions. Punctuation is optional. —I love you Zach. 56 JULY | AUGUST 2012 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE —I did good didn’t I Dad I helped you get out because the Is that all there is/ If that’s all there is my friends … parking lot was you know you know dad it was kind of hard —What does it mean to you Zach? to get out of. —What? —That’s because your father’s a moron. —When she says that’s all there is my friend. —Yeah. I rarely ask Zach to give his interpretation of something. It makes him nervous. His hard drive stores information only. Up ahead a sign proclaims, WELCOME TO OHIO! Here is an But I vowed on this trip to probe Zach’s mind, find what is opportunity to make amends. I will yell the word Ohio with there, what is not there, and what never can be. He considers the ending slightly varied so Zach can correct me. We started the question. He starts to answer. He stops. He answers. playing this game 16 years ago when he was eight. He always —That’s life I guess. finds it an invigorating dose of concreteness and reacts with For the first time I wonder if he understands on some level uproarious laughter. His giggles are like hiccups at first, what he and I have been through to get here. His birth and intermittent and inconsistent, then they start peeling off in near death, my two divorces and broken engagement. All our rolls if I seize on a word that particularly strikes him. I have moving around. An ongoing earthquake of adjustment for tired of this, but I feel repentance is necessary for the parking somebody who craves stability and hates change.